Uniform news racks win supervisors' OK

Rachel Gordon, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, May 27, 1998

1998-05-27 04:00:00 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- The mishmash of free-standing news racks on San Francisco sidewalks will be replaced with uniform stands under a controversial plan backed by Mayor Brown and adopted by the Board of Supervisors.

A split board Tuesday gave initial approval to the project, which is supported by San Francisco beautification and neighborhood groups and opposed by many publishers, who fear distribution will be hindered.

The law, more than a year in the making, places tight regulations on news racks, focusing on style and location.

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Critics are concerned that the law treads dangerously into the territory of First Amendment protections and may hamper distribution of certain publications, particularly neighborhood papers that come out once a month and will take a back seat to the dailies in garnering coveted space in the modular news racks.

"First Amendment rights are going to be infringed on," said Sandy Lange, controller for the Bay Guardian. She said her weekly paper would have fewer places to distribute under the new law.

Kaufman said The City did not want to inhibit publishers from doing business in San Francisco and would make an extra effort to assure that their papers and magazines continue to be available on city streets.

She called on attorney Kathleen Sullivan, a First Amendment expert who teaches at Stanford law school, to testify before the board on the constitutionality of the law.

"This ordinance is far more generous to the press than the First Amendment requires," said Sullivan, who has served as a paid consultant for The City's Department of Public Works in developing the law. Sullivan said she was confident the ordinance could withstand a legal challenge.

"I really do feel that there will be a First Amendment problem," she said. "The uniformity is not conducive to freedom of the press."

San Francisco now has an estimated 13,000 to 14,000 free-standing news racks, displaying 50 to 60 publications.

The uniform racks will be installed throughout The City in specially designated zones. Officials say there may one day be 500 or more of the multi-publication boxes in place. First priority will be on neighborhoods most congested with individual news racks, such as the Financial District, Civic Center, Union Square, the Castro, the Mission and the Marina.

Under the new law, The City can confiscate free-standing news racks found in the special zones.

Publishers will have to pay $30 for each slot in the news racks, but there is no guarantee they'll be awarded a space, said Mark Primeau, director of the Department of Public Works. The City, however, will put an appeals process in place to allow publications to lobby for slots should their applications for inclusion in particular units be denied, he said.

The fee is intended to pay for administration of the program.

The new boxes will be installed and maintained by an independent vendor, who in return can sell advertising on the racks to recoup costs and turn a profit. The project will be put out to bid.

Four vendors participated in a recent fixed-pedestal news rack pilot project. They are JCDecaux, which has The City contract for the high-tech public toilets inside advertising kiosks; the San Francisco Newspaper Agency, which is the business arm of The Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle; City Solutions, a Santa Barbara-based company; and Gannett, the publisher of USA Today.

Primeau said he hoped to launch the effort by year's end.&lt;

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